The Words: 1835 words today in a single, half-hour sprint this evening with my daughter. I’m not more than a single day’s word count ahead, which is good, because I have a Thanksgiving event coming up in a few days, and though I definitely plan to make sure I get some writing that day, I don’t know how much I’ll have time for.
The Story: The stranger that brought Garend to Newland has now revealed the nation’s closest-held secrets to Garend. Even I felt weird typing these things out, since it’s such a major revelation, close-held secrets of my own. But it will all come to light someday, sooner or later.
How to Speak Dragonese How to Train Your Dragon #3 by Cressida Cowell read by David Tennant
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Middle grade fantasy
When another Viking training exercise goes wrong, Hiccup and Fishlegs find themselves at the mercy of Romans and a nanodragon named Ziggerastica.
This was my favorite book in the series so far. The tiny-but-arrogant Ziggerastica is a lot of fun, Hiccup meets the heir to another Viking clan who also provides some enjoyable moments, and the return of a dastardly villain. Though I’m not a huge fan of the formula these books tend to have with Toothless and Fishlegs screwing up and happening upon something they otherwise wouldn’t, I enjoyed the overall journey more this time. I was considering stopping with the series with this book, but I enjoyed it too much to not keep going. Plus, I really do enjoy David Tennant’s narration, and even his interpretation of Toothless is growing on me more and more. For that matter, Toothless himself, though so different from the movie version I knew first, is growing on me with every book.
The Words: 1802 words today in two sprints, one with my daughter and one alone.
The Story: After yesterday’s brainstorming and really struggling to know where to go next, I just kind of jumped into a scene today that wasn’t even in my plans. But it got me going, and then I went from there to another, more connected scene, and finally got back to what would actually happen next with Garend from where I left off. But I skipped a day or two that was going to just be a lot of chatting, most likely. Of course, today’s writing also ended up just being a lot of talking. Conversations between characters seems to be my go-to when I don’t know what else to do. Oh well, I left off today right on the edge of a life-changing revelation for Garend, so tomorrow at least should be easier to get into.
The Words: 1866 words today that were actually all in the form of brainstorming. I finally got to a point where the story, which was barely a story to start with, was going nowhere and I had to come up with some scenes to start into. Most of what I brainstormed were just things I already knew was going to happen because they coincide with “Power,” and I really want to try to include a few things that are completely unique to Garend, but I’ll go with what I came up with for now.
Total word count: 33,137
This is a good time to watch episode 4 of the NaNoMusical, where things really heat up!
The Words: 1701 words today shortly before bedtime. It’s a good thing I realized yesterday that I don’t have a large enough lead to take more short days unless absolutely necessary, or I probably would have cut today short. I can’t really afford that, though, with holiday events coming up.
The Story: Because of trying to get the words out quickly tonight, today’s writing mostly consisted of a conversation between Garend and the person who brought him to Newland. She’s telling him a lot of things about his ancestry that he never knew (and that I didn’t know either).
The Words: 1726 words today in two 15-minute sprints with my 15-year-old daughter. It occurred to me today that I’m not even a full day’s word count ahead, which is both uncommon for me anymore and a little scary. I have to be careful about my short days from now on.
The Story: Garend and the person who brought him to Newland talked a bit about the future today, and Garend finally got a chance to rest and reflect. I think it’s time to start brainstorming some actual events to happen once Garend makes it over the metaphorical threshold into Newland, which I may just jump forward to in the next day or two. Even I’m getting bored by what I’m writing.
The Words: 1824 words today. Sundays are pretty full for us lately with church in the morning, Christmas choir practice in the afternoon, and grocery shopping with my husband while our daughter is at youth group in the evening. I did a 10-minute sprint in the short window of time I had in the afternoon and got around 800 words. Then this evening, I used the Sprinter site and just wrote until I’d gotten another 1000 words.
The Story: Garend’s evaluation is over, but things aren’t quite looking up yet. He’s finally made it within the boundaries of Newland, but he’s still not allowed to see or know anything until the results come back on his evaluation. I have no actual book plans for any of what I’m writing yet, but if I ever decided to use any of this in a future book, I’d really have to pare it down. It’s interesting for me to be exploring this process, but overall pretty boring stuff.
The Words: 800 words total for the day in a 15-minute sprint with my daughter shortly before I needed to head to bed to be up early. I really thought I’d have more time to write today, but it just didn’t work out. (I’m posting this for the 15th a week later because apparently, when I tried to post it on the 15th, I instead just edited the post for the 14th instead of copying it to make a new post. So I have restored the post from the 14th and have made this its own post.)
The Story: Garend has been released from his evaluation and sent to Newland, but only to a lodging building pending his evaluation being cleared by the powers that be. He won’t be alone, but he also still may not get the answers he’s looking for just yet.
The Words: 1959 words total for the day in 2 15-minute sprints using the Sprinter site. I wasn’t sure I’d have time to hit par today due to having a busy evening, so I did one sprint earlier in the day and thought I might have to be happy with the 1020 words it got me. But fortunately I had more time in the evening than I expected and managed another sprint. And I hit the halfway point a day early!
The Story: Today brought an interesting discussion about what Garend’s future might look like in Newland. And the realization that he is still torn about leaving Pithea and his friends there behind. But the allure of this new place is just too great to ignore.
The Words: 2008 words total for the day, in a sort of repeat of yesterday. I knew I’d be gone in the evening again and that when I got home, I’d probably be doing work around the house until it was time to go to bed. So I carved out 30 minutes in the afternoon and wrote. I thought yesterday’s 1800 words might be a record for a 30-minute sprint for me, but I was really surprised to see today’s count. I didn’t feel like I was typing any faster, so the difference might have been that today I wrote on my computer, while yesterday I wrote on my Freewrite Alpha at the table, which is higher than the keyboard tray on my desk. It’s not super comfortable to write there, plus it’s a smaller keyboard, so I think I type slower overall on the Alpha. Or maybe the words just really flowed today.
The Story: Garend had to incriminate himself by revealing that he’d shared a secret he’d been told not to share with Lex, his mom, and a third character in “Power,” the book I’m nearing publication with. His fears about destroying their lives is finally put to rest, and hopefully (for both our sakes) he’ll be able to move on from this evaluation soon. When my husband suggested showing Garend in Newland because of his story arc in “Power,” I’ll be he expected Garend to actually make it to Newland.
Total word count: 23,261
If the week 2 blahs have got you down (or even if they don’t), it’s a good time to check out the 3rd episode of the NaNoMusical!
A Journey of Words 